


Be John Egbert ==>

by YourFellowSburbian



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Attempt at Humor, FTM John, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Homophobia, Humanstuck, M/M, Trans Character, Trans John, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 13:23:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3852475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourFellowSburbian/pseuds/YourFellowSburbian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Be John Egbert==></p>
<p>Well... that's easier said than done. You see... you were born as Joan Egbert and coming out to your friends has been actually pretty great, but coming out to your dad on the first day of High School is a chore. Going to a new school is a fresh start for you, especially since you know who you are and what you like... or do you? There's some 'ironic' cool kid in your first period who makes you start to question your sexuality. What are you going to do?</p>
<p>((Wow... this story sounds terrible thanks to my summary. Sorry guys. It's actually a pretty decent story I swear.))</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be John Egbert ==>

**Author's Note:**

> Alright so... a lot of this is me projecting my own struggles onto beloved characters. It's really hard being trans at my home and so I decided to write something that would allow me to vent or get away from my current struggles. Unlike my parents, John's father is a lot more understanding about his son so since even though that's a big part of my life, I can't bring myself to make John's dad anything like either of my parents in any negative way, because that just isn't him. I'm doing my best to keep everyone in character but it's been a loooooong time since I've written fanfiction, so you'll have to excuse my inaccuracies. I'm doing my best.

Be John Egbert==>

You’re TRYING! It’s not easy you know. You sigh, staring at your long hair in the mirror. You absolutely hated how you look. Your hair is too long, face is too round and soft, eyelashes are too long, and not to mention your curvy figure. Ugh! Why were you cursed to be in the wrong body, with the wrong name?! After staring long and hard at yourself and mentally pointing out every flaw you had you picked up the scissors. You’ve had enough of this. It was too much of a chore to pretend to be Joan for your father. You tried so hard to not be trans. You even tried to pass it off as genderfluid. But the fact was, you hated being a girl. You liked it when people didn’t treat you like a girl, it felt so natural. Luckily you had a few short, realistic wigs left over from your weaboo days that you’d wear when you felt more boyish. But they were no longer enough. You couldn’t stand to wake up and look at your long, girly hair any longer! You took a deep breath before starting to cut. It couldn’t be too hard, right? You’ve cut wigs before and it surprisingly turned out really well. It’s the same thing, sorta. Crap. You just realized you won’t be able to see the back of your head very easily. Oh well. No going back now.

Congratulations John! You have successfully cut your hair. Look at you now! Your hair is a bit of a mess, but it was pretty much like this long. You’ve never quite been able to control it, so you won’t let it bother you. Now it was time for the big reveal. Coming out to your father was something you’ve dreaded for a long time. He always goes on about how proud he is of you, but that’s when you do something big, but still under the ‘normal’ standards, like playing in a piano recital or winning an award. Not anything like this.

Go show your dad ==>

Yeah yeah yeah. You’re working on it. You have your binder on, some old khaki shorts from your cousin Jake; thank god he’s been pretty supportive of your choices, and your favorite white t-shirt with a slimer on it. You build up the courage to go downstairs but end up not going until your dad is calling you. 

“Joan… you’re going to be late on your first day of school. What’s taking you so long?” He asked, probably from the bottom of the stair with how close his voice was. 

“Uhh… I’m coming dad! I’m just… I misplaced my phone!” You call back. 

Nice save John! You try to rush past your father, but he stares at you in shock and also in your path. 

“Joan… what did you do to your hair?” He asked, brows furrowed in confusion. You can’t lie to your dad, nor can you keep this a secret any longer. 

“Dad… I’m… I’m…” Shit. You’re chickening out. Goddammit. 

“You’re what, sweetie? Are you… are you trying to tell me you’re a lesbian because if you are that’s fine. I’m still proud of you.” He smiled and nodded and you shook your head vigorously. 

“No dad! I’m trans, not lesbian!” You blurted awkwardly. Even you had to admit the situation was like one in a shitty fanfiction. 

“Trans?” He asks you and you nod in return. 

“It’s umm… It’s when you feel like you’re the different gender than what you’re born as. I uhh… I’ve been thinking this over a lot and well… I feel like I was supposed to be a boy.” You and your dad stare at each other in shock for a moment before he just… nods at you. 

“Alright well… we’ll talk about this when you get home, alright? And we’ll take you to a hairstylist to fix up your hair a little.” He looked awkward and uncomfortable. Shit. Now what? You sigh, supposing there wasn’t much you could do at this point anyway. The car ride was long and uncomfortably silent. You were almost thankful to be at your school if not for the new challenge you’d be facing.

Go to your first class ==>

Wow. So demanding. Chill. You make your way to your next class, trying to go over your own little script for telling your teacher. “Hi… I’m in your class listed as Joan Egbert and a girl, but could you please address me as John and by male pronouns?” You mutter under your breath quietly. “No. That sounds stupid. What about ‘Hey, sorry to bother you but… I’m transgender and I’d like to be called John Egbert. If you wouldn’t mind of course!’” You frown. That sounded terrible too! Ugh. You were not good at bringing up awkward topics like this. Coming out is so important, but so nerve wracking.

You have found yourself in your first period class room. There is no seating chart it seems and the teacher is sitting at the front of the class looking bored. Alright. Here goes nothing. You take a deep breath before walking over to your new first period teacher, who doesn’t notice you until you are directly in front of them. 

“Can I help you?” Oh god, she sounded like she didn’t want to be here. Abort mission! Abort mission! 

“Sorry to bother you. I’m on your roster as Joan Egbert, but can you please call me John?” You ask politely. 

“Yeah, whatever kid.” She rolls her eyes, takes out her roster, scribbles out Joan for John and shoos you off. You smile at your small victory. You honestly hadn’t thought she’d do it. You take your seat and get out the notebook you reserved for note taking in this class, even if you weren’t necessarily taking notes today there was no harm in having it out.

The other students filed in as you doodled in your notebook. What? After waiting for a good five minutes you got bored and there was a pen in your hand then one thing lead to another and you were drawing really shitty versions of Nicolas Cage and Ghostbusters stuff into your little notebook. Damn. You promised yourself you would refrain from doodling until later in the year. Oh well. It was in pen. No going back now. You sighed, looking at your shitty doodles. Maybe if you actually tried in art you could be an artist, but no, these doodles were so bad they made you laugh. Apparently whoever had sat next to you noticed them too because they were kind of looking in your general direction and chuckling. 

“An artist, I see.” Dear baby Jesus. It had to be illegal to have an attractive, deep voice like that. What in the hell even? You look over at the boy next to you. Tall, blonde, thin, and somehow getting away with wearing weird anime shades inside the school. That was it. The man next to you had to be the most attractive man you had ever laid eyes on. And you were not gay. Well… in some people’s eyes you were since you’ve known you liked girls for a long time, even if you hadn’t told anyone. But since you were a guy in spirit or in mind or however people want to view it, you were straight and pretty much always have been. The boy next to you’s eyebrows started knitting together in concern. Fuck you should probably say something. 

“Not really. All I do is doodle.” You admitted, your voice cracking slightly at trying to keep it at a lower pitch. The boy just nodded at you. 

“Art is art dude. Doodle or not.” He shrugged nonchalantly. 

“Do you draw?” You couldn’t let this awkward conversation die yet. This guy’s voice was too amazing and holy shit he had the cutest freckles if you just concentrated on his face.

“Heh… yeah. I make a pretty sick webcomic too. Probably haven’t heard of it though. You heard of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff?” He asked, his eyebrow quirking up. You shook your head in response before scribbling down the name in your notebook. 

“No. But I’ll be sure to check it out.” You smiled up at him and the corner of his lips upturned slightly in response. “’Aight. Cool.” You nodded and you both fell into that awkward silence people fall into when they first meet someone and don’t know what else to say yet.

“So uhh… you got a name, mystery doodler man?” He asked, leaning back in his seat. Sweet. He called you ‘man’. Maybe he didn’t know. Hmm… in that case, better not bring it up. 

“Huh? Oh yeah… John. John Egbert.” His eyebrows immediately rising at hearing your name. 

“John? Really? What kind of cliché name is that?” He asked, you pressed your lips into a thin line. Wow… rude. You were starting to doubt your attraction to him. It was probably just your confused hormones or whatever. Yeah… that was it. 

“It’s just my name. I like it. Besides… your name can’t be any better.” You retort. The guy just smirked at you. Who the fuck even is this guy anyway, acting all cocky and full of himself. Pfft. Whatever cool kid. 

“The name’s Strider. Dave Strider.” He did a cliché hair flip at the end of the sentence and you couldn’t tell if it was for added effect or if he genuinely was displeased with how his hair was slightly falling into his eyes under his shades. You try to stifle a laugh but… oh god this was too funny. Soon enough you’re full on laughing at him behind your hand and he is frowning at you. 

“Fuck… Dave? Really? You have just as generic a name as I do! Who’re you to judge? And that hair flip at the end was fucking priceless. Oh god…” You wipe a tear from your eye. He was about to retort when he was cut off by the bell and the teacher stood up, actually smiling and looking friendly.

“Hello! My name’s Mrs. Cooper. I’ll be your history teacher from now on. I’m going to call role real quick, just so I can start putting names to faces and such.” 

You inhale quietly and hold your breath until she gets down to your name. You asked her to change it and saw her physically change it, but you weren’t sure what to expect from this lady and if she’d actually say it right or not. Of course it didn’t take long for her to get down to your name considering it was by last name and the Letter ‘E’ wasn’t that far down. 

“John Egbert?” You smiled and let out the breath you had been holding. 

“Here.” You smile and wave and she smiles awkwardly and nods at you. Your voice went up awkwardly when you said ‘here’ and now you are blushing. Way to go. You wait to talk to Dave again for when Mrs. Cooper stops talking and hands out a worksheet. 

“Get to know your table buddy more and see what you have in common!” She instructs. 

“Fill it out yourself and then ask your partner the same questions and give yourself a star if you two have something in common. I know it’s childish, but there’s not really much to do on the first day, so have fun with this.” 

You watch her as she goes back to her desk and probably starts playing Free Cell or Solitaire on her computer. You quickly fill out the questionnaire before turning to Dave who’s taking his sweet time on the last question. Probably on purpose or something. Finally he writes something down before he turns to you. 

“Aight. So… this stupid questionnaire thing… uhh…” He looks down at his paper. 

“You got any siblings?” He asks. You nod. “I have an older sister in college named Jane.” Dave nods and seems to scribble something of the sort down. 

“I have two older brothers. Dirk and Bro. Dirks in college doing robotics shit and Brois… I don’t know how old he is. He is some ageless being. I don't even know his legal name. We just call him Bro.” He shrugged. 

“Raised Dirk and I though… so he has to be in his thirties or maybe even forties.” You write down that he has two brothers and one of them is in college, like your sister. 

“Alright… do you have any allergies? I have a peanut allergy.” You tell him and he laughs at you. 

“Seriously? A peanut allergy? You are the biggest nerd.” He teased. Or at least… you think he was teasing you. 

“Yeah yeah yeah… I have a peanut allergy and I’m a big nerd. How about you? Do you have any allergies?” You ask again. He shakes his head. 

“Nah… Striders don’t have allergies. It’d make it too easy to take us down and that wouldn’t be cool.” Christ, is this kid serious? You’re taking every good thought you ever thought about him and throwing it out.

“Oh my god, you are such a dweeb.” 

You roll your eyes. Apparently you had an effect on him because he stopped leaning back all nonchalantly and started sitting more forward in his chair. “

Yo, hey. Striders aren’t dweebs. We’re the coolest people out there man. The coolest. No one is cooler than a Strider. You can’t just go around calling them dweebs.” 

You roll your eyes once more. “Yeah whatever. What’s your favorite video game?” 

You decide to drop the topic of him being a dweeb, even though he totally is, and continue on the questionnaire. 

“Sburb.” His answer was actually short and it felt weird. He seemed like he enjoyed rambling, maybe you shouldn’t have called him a dweeb. Maybe you hurt his feelings. Now you felt bad. For fucks sake. But hey, you play Sburb too. 

“Oh really? Same!” You brightened up. “I’m the Heir of Breath. What’re you?” You ask, staring the sheet before turning your attention to Dave. 

“Knight of Time.” He smirks at you. But it’s a different kind of smirk. You’re starting to think most of his emotions are shown through smirks, but you’re not quite sure. You haven’t known him long enough. 

John, get to know Dave ==>

Already on it. You’ve started to notice he really lights up when he talks about stuff he likes, just like any person would you suppose. But it’s different with him because he sort of lets down his cool kid façade when he does. You found out that he enjoys remixing songs and collecting dead things and he wants to be an archaeologist, and he likes doing photography and he’s just way more interesting than you originally thought. You almost regret doubting him. You guys are getting along really well and you are actually quite sad to have to leave to go to your next period.

“Hey… you have a Pesterchum right?” You ask Dave when you’re about to put away your stuff. 

“Of course I have a pesterchum. Here” He grabs your arm and writes with a red pen before you have the opportunity to point out that you have notebook paper right in front of you.

turntechGodhead

Sounds kind of egotistical, but you suppose you thought he was egotistical in the first place anyway and he really wasn’t so you might as well give him a shot. You take a blue pen and scribble your chumhandle down on his arm. 

“What’s an ectoBiologist?” He looks at you quizzically. 

You shrug. “Ecto as in like… the ectoplasma from Ghostbusters… and biologist as in a normal biologist… I really don’t remember. I was thirteen when I came up with this name.” You finish putting your stuff away before the bell rings and everyone’s trying to push their way out the door. You hang back with Dave for a bit, waiting for the storm to clear and chatting it up.

Maybe today wasn’t going to be as terrible as you thought. You ended up having band with Dave, along with your Japanese class. You both knew some phrases and called each other weeaboos. You also have lunch with the guy and he offered for you to sit with him and his friends. The first day of high school was great. You were kind of glad you ended up not going to the school all your middle school friends went to. You ended up going to the same school as your cousin Jade. You lived right on the border to go to either school and Skaia High ended up not being a mistake at all. Though you were starting to wonder why Jade hadn’t told you about Dave before.

“I wanted you two to meet on your own terms!” She defended. 

“Duh! I didn’t want you guys to have opinions of each other before you two could meet face to face. I kept trying to get you to hang out with me during the summer, remember?!”

Yeah… you remember. “I thought you just wanted someone to walk Bec with you!” You defended. 

Jade did bring up the fact that Jake was never there to walk Bec anymore, even when he was home from school he was always off with his boyfriend, which turned out to be Dave’s brother, which was… odd for you. Does your family have like… a type? And is that type tall, handsome, cool kid dorks? You didn’t want to think about it and instead you focused on talking with Dave, who also chastised Jade for not introducing you two.

John, go home==>

Aye-aye captain! You didn’t mind waiting for your dad to pick you up. Apparently Dave’s place was within walking distance from the school so he opted to wait with you. When your dad pulled up you two were laughing at some joke shared between you two. 

“Joa-John… come on. I made you that appointment for your hair, remember? Sorry to pull you away from your friend.” 

You shrugged before turning to Dave. “Message me later?” You ask. 

“Totally. You have fun at that hair appointment Egbert.” He waves you off before turning and walking away. 

“I’m glad you made a new friend.” Your dad says as you buckle up. You smile and nod. 

“He’s one of Jade’s friends too! And we have three classes together and he likes some of the same stuff as me…” You say excitedly to which your father chuckles. 

“Well that’s good. I’m glad.” He states before pulling out of the parking lot. 

“So you want to be called ‘John' from now on and… and by male pronouns?” He asks. You take a deep breath and nod. 

“That’d be ideal, yeah…” He nods in return. 

“Alright. It may take some getting used to on my part. But I’ll do my best. You caught me off guard this morning and I didn’t know what being transgender really was so I didn’t know how to handle it. But I looked up some stuff in my free time at work and now that I understand it better I’m more than willing to comply. I love you… son.” 

You feel a wave of relief and emotions wash over you as you hear your father refer to you as ‘son’. You wonder why you were ever worried about him being anything but understanding. “Thank you dad. It means a lot.” You smile at him and he grins right back. Before you know it you’re at a hairstylist who freaks out the minute he sees you. 

“Joan! Your hair! What did you do to it?!” She cries. “I uhh… I cut it because I thought it was a good way to come out as trans to my dad.” You admit as the woman looks you over. “Oh. You’re trans? I’m so sorry. I just called you Joan. What’s your name?” She asks as she starts washing your hair. 

“It’s just John.” You tell her. She nods thoughtfully. 

“Well John… if you ever try to cut your own hair again I swear to whatever deity is out there that I will come after you. You may be good at styling wigs, but leave the hair to the professionals.” She teased before getting started. Today really turned out to be a good day.

**Author's Note:**

> Sburb is just a video game they play. No worlds being destroyed here. Anyway... feel free to leave a comment or a kudo or something. If your comment is negative, try to make it constructive criticism please. Thank you so much for reading. There's not going to be any regular updating so just... be on your toes I guess?? 
> 
> Feel free to follow me on tumblr at http://yourfellowsburbian.tumblr.com/
> 
> Thank you :)


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